Background Details on Suspected Shooter Aaron Alexis

Valerie Parlave, assistant director in charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Washington field office, confirmed that the suspect who died in a shootout with police Monday afternoon is 34-year-old Aaron Alexis of Fort Worth, Texas. The FBI has posted photos of Mr. Alexis and urged people to contact the organization with any information.

Mr. Alexis had been detached from the Navy in January 2011 after an earlier gun arrest in Ft. Worth, Texas. Mr. Alexis had joined the Navy in May 2007, according to Navy records.

A defense official said that Mr. Alexis was pushed out of the military because of repeated incidents and arrests.

“There is no question there was a pattern of misconduct while in the Navy reserves,” the official said.

According to a Fort Worth Police Department incident report, Aaron Alexis was arrested in September 2010 for discharging a firearm in Fort Worth. (Read the full report.)

An officer was called to the apartment of a woman, who had a bullet hole in her floor and ceiling. She claimed that she suspected it came from Mr. Alexis, her downstairs neighbor, who had confronted her days earlier, complaining that she was making too much noise, according to the report.

Mr. Alexis told police he had fired the gun accidentally when he was cleaning it. No one was injured and no charges were filed, according to the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office, which prosecutes crimes in the Fort Worth area.

In a separate incident, Seattle police said Mr. Alexis had been arrested in 2004 for shooting out the tires of another man’s vehicle in an anger-fueled “blackout.” Mr. Alexis told police at the time he had been deeply disturbed by events he witnessed during the attack of Sept. 11, 2001. Police said Mr. Alexis’s father said his son had been involved in 9/11 rescue efforts and had post-traumatic stress and anger-management issues.

According to a statement from Hewlett-Packard Co., Mr. Alexis was working for a company called “The Experts,” which H-P described as a subcontractor for an H-P contract on the Navy Marine Corps Intranet network. H-P said it was cooperating fully with law enforcement on the matter.

Mr. Alexis held a secret security clearance through his employer, The Experts, which had rehired him in July to work on a project at the Navy facility, according to company CEO Thomas Hoshko. “I don’t know if it was his first day on the job or what but we are trying to figure it out,” Mr. Hoshko said of Mr. Alexis. “We were just as shocked as anyone.” (Read more of the CEO’s comments.)

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University said in a statement Monday that Mr. Alexis had been taking online classes at the school at the time of the mass shooting.

“We can confirm that Aaron Alexis was currently enrolled as a worldwide online student via our Fort Worth campus,” the school said in a statement, adding that he started in July 2012 and was “pursuing a bachelor’s of science in aeronautics.”

“The entire university community’s hearts and thoughts are with the victims and families of those affected by this tragedy,” the statement, adding that the school was cooperating with investigators.

Nutpisit Suthamtewakul, owner of the Happy Bowl Thai restaurant in Fort Worth, Texas, said in an interview that he met Mr. Alexis, the suspect in the Navy Yard shootings, roughly three years ago at an area Buddhist temple. Mr. Alexis had recently converted from Christianity to Buddhism, he said.

Mr. Suthamtewakul, who is actually a Christian, not a Buddhist, said the two became friends and drinking buddies. When Mr. Alexis told him he was fighting with a neighbor at his apartment over noise issues, Mr. Suthamtewakul said he invited Mr. Alexis to move in with him and his wife, and personally helped Mr. Alexis move out of the apartment. (Read more from the interview.)

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